The elaborate plan, is just that. The plan. The Reapers sleep, Soverign watches, when he thinks it's time, he pressed the button and the cycle starts. It's just business as usual. And it's a lot more effective, faster, and easier then travelling there, I'd wager, even if they can travel at speeds that could make the journey in our life time.

So I doubt the Citadel's Mass Relay is there because they lack an alternate method of travel. My money is on something like soft warp holes. They appear in the video to be travelling at no greater speed then our spaceships, and still have a ways to go, so it's not something like Hyperspace. Maybe it's the same general principle, but while they are moving at this leisurely speed, space and time warps around them, so that they shoot through. Same as worm holes, really, but slower, and just a random theory.

No need to get all defensive. :'D

I can speculate, too, though ... I was hoping the Reapers would be stopped before even reaching our galaxy.

I'm just saying, whatever explanation they come up with, and I'm sure they're giving it some serious thought, it needs to meet two requirements, that are sort of two sides of the same thing. Basically, it has to make sense ( i.e. the Reapers didn't simply cruise in from intergalactic space ), and it can't render the whole Sovereign gambit completely meaningless. It's not that hard in theory, so I'm sure they'll manage, but ... I'm just saying, that's all. I'm just saying.

Reminds me of something I read on the BioWare forums, though. There was some speculation regarding the origin of the Reapers. Some guy was insisting they'd simply always existed. I pointed out that this is impossible, as they couldn't have existed prior to the Big Bang. His retort? The Mass Effect universe didn't start from a big bang, it just ... always existed.

I'm sure I don't have to point out how impossible this is, in so many different ways. However, if BioWare does anything like that, something that not only bends the laws of physics ( as element zero does ) but outright ignores them, I am ... going to be very angry. For a brief time. But still.

I doubt that, though. BioWare have gotten their physics right in ways most sci-fi ignores.

No no, the Citadel attack is their M.O. It's a sneak attack. Jump through the relay, the Citadel closes up, the Reapers cut the head off galactic communication. Now instead of a council there's one planet fighting alone. That's how they took out the Protheans. If you believe this the Reaver's fear an organized organic attack. Shepard foiled that plot, and he foiled the human Reaper experiment. So now they have nothing left but a brute force attack.

Galactic civilization must fall by the Reaper's standpoint. Now it just becomes messy and a drawn out war where many Reapers are probably going to die. The damn things aren't immortal they're just hard to kill. Shepard even says a few times in 2 that the war is coming. It's not a plot hole you just have to have no life like me. X)

Okay, they live in Dark Space, an area of space with no stars... Harbinger claims our end is 'the universes salvation', so at least some of the Reapers believe there is a goal in mind besides simply harvesting us, something important to galactic health. That sun that Tali is researching, and a second you you can read about in space exploration, are degrading due to Dark Energy, or in other words, shit we don't understand. Lastly, Reapers home and their cores are all using Dark Energy.

My theory? Reapers, or whoever made them, fucked around too long with Mass Effect fields, and started inadvertently doing harm to sensitive elements of the universe. It is Dark Space because all of their suns and stars have been destroyed, and now we are seeing the first signs of this in our own universe, since we have avoided our culling.

I thought they might have a virus or something making them all evil. I try not to think on the Reavers so much. Bioware pulled of that timeless, larger-than-life antagonism so well they kind of scare me.

I don't think intergalactic space having gone dark due to stars being destroyed is supported by science. I think that would wreak havoc on our understanding of the universe and its origin, which in turn would affect the very laws of nature. You can't make something like that up without considering the science behind it, and for that to be possible at all, you'd probably have to change other things as well, to follow the same laws.

Personally, I'm more inclined to think the bit about salvation refers to creating Reapers from all the universe's sapient species. It is probable that any species left to its own devices will eventually obliterate itself somehow, and so the Reapers may act as historians of sort, intervening before they can destroy themselves, creating Reapers from them, and destroying the rest. Of course, that doesn't really say anything about their motivation for doing so.

But ... maybe we should make a Mass Effect speculation / discussion thread, rather than derail this one? xd;

I looked up the supposed release date on Game FAQs for ME 3 and they have it at Q4 (fourth quarter of the year i.e. Fall and Winter). Really that fast. Having a real budget rocks. Want to start a pool on whether it gets here first or L.A. Noir? :)

I doubt I'll be that disappointed They'll have to do a lot of things wrong for me to be that upset with the game. Changing the Reapers from a Cthulian level antagonist to a more Stargate level one is annoying, yes, but not a huge deal for me.

Now, if they pull the old 'Protheans left scattered pieces of an anti-Reaper super weapon all over the galaxy', then we'll be nearing rant territory

Now, if they pull the old 'Protheans left scattered pieces of an anti-Reaper super weapon all over the galaxy', then we'll be nearing rant territory

That's in the middle of rant territory right there, since the first ME stated that the Protheans were unable to defend themselves against the reaper's in the first place, and if they managed to put together an anti-reaper weapon and have enough time to scatter it around the galaxy, they would have had enough time to hide it and put it together, then kill the reapers.

I agree they will have to do a lot of things wrong for MA3 to be bad. Although if they do the super weapon thing, which seems like the most likely considering the last 2 games, I'll likely have to demote it to at best above average game (assuming its as good or better then the last 2)

Anyway, Ive been playing the beta for DC universe the last couple of days. Its been interesting. The gameplay is a lot cooler then most MMO's I have played but it lacks the charm of most of them too (especially City of Hero's the other major superhero/villain MMO). Maybe I would get into it more if I was a DC fan but the only character of theirs I ever really enjoyed or got into was Batman.

That's in the middle of rant territory right there, since the first ME stated that the Protheans were unable to defend themselves against the reaper's in the first place, and if they managed to put together an anti-reaper weapon and have enough time to scatter it around the galaxy, they would have had enough time to hide it and put it together, then kill the reapers.

Unless they were in the process of developing it at several different locations (like we might use components from different countries to manufacture something), and there was a key piece/ingredient/material that they weren't able to find.

Prothean would make a good deal of sense, actually. The Protheans didn't stand a chance at resistance because they were taken completely by surprise. The genocide, however, took a long time. It's not entirely unthinkable that, similar to the Protheans on Virmire, others were hiding elsewhere, developing weapons. I'm just saying.